"We also suggest if you begin to feel uncomfortable that you volunteer to drop out."

"Uncomfortable?" a gnarly veteran from New Zealand muttered. "Take it easy? The bleeding hell does he think we run for?"

"One important thing further. The water in the sponges is for wiping the face. Do not drink it. There will be plenty of drink at the tables. Our deepest suggestion is that you ingest no water from the sponges. Now. I wish you all once again good luck. And look forward to seeing you this evening for the banquet at the Great Hall. Thank you for your attention."

It had been a peculiar event, lengthy and uncomfortable. And if its thrust and purpose had been somewhat vague, to say the least, no one wanted to prolong it by asking questions. As the runners were queueing up for their buses, the writer, notebook and pen in hand, corraled Chuck Hattersly and inquired reporter-fashion what in his opinion was the upshot, the kernel of the long conference.

"Don't," was Hattersly's immediate summary, "suck the sponges."

After lunch there awaited, according to Mr. Mude, a plethora of palace and pagodas all deemed mandatory for a first-time visitor to Beijing. The journalists wanted to know if they might go instead to the compound assigned to the Chinese runners. Mude said this afternoon was prescribed rest for the Chinese entries. Then they asked to see Democracy Wall. Mude explained that Democracy Wall no longer existed. Quill-headed free-lunched Bee Wing Bling, feeling looser by the minute among his second-countrymen, explained that the wall in fact still existed but was covered now with billboards bragging about refrigerators with egg trays. No more homemade posters of dissent and protest. Mude felt obliged to further explain that those foolish posters had only caused confusion among the people.

"If one has comment, one can write the government bureaus direct."

"Right," Bling agreed. "It's better to cause confusion among the bureaucrats. They're trained."

"Ah." Mude swiveled his smile back to the journalists. "Perhaps you will like to stop at the Friendship Store before continuing to Forbidden City? They have Coca-Cola."

The journalists would have preferred to scout off on their own but since they were stroking Mude to try to get permission to follow tomorrow's race in a taxi, instead of sitting on their thumbs for two hours at the start/finish with the rest of the press, they had decided to try and keep on his good side.

And if he did not have a good one, to at least stay off his bad.

One sensed that beneath that Western suit and patient Eastern smile an irritability was beginning to bubble. Though Mr. Mude never said so, it was obvious to all that whatever affection he had ever held for Mr. Bling was now in rapid decline. Whenever he acquired tickets for a tourist attraction he no longer included the scraggly little student. Bling had to fork over his own fen to get in the Forbidden Cities and Summer Palaces. When Bling was finally fenless the journalists forked over for him. This made Mr. Mude twitch and fidget in his unfamiliar cowboy clothes.

The tour had taken a turn not to Mr. Mude's liking: too many Yankee guffaws at Bling's sardonic commentary on the Beijing scene; too much talk from which he felt excluded, especially track talk.

"You are also a runner, Mr. Wu?"

They were coming out of Beihai Park, with its white dome and holiday throngs of colorfully clothed school kids scampering about like escaped flowers. Mude had been mentioning the park's renowned reputation for centuries of quiet beauty; Bling had been filling in with notes of more recent interest that Mr. Mude had neglected to mention. Until two years ago, Bling had told them, the park had been closed completely to the general public, the lovely quiet of the lake undisturbed by rented rowboats, the massive gates barred and guarded. No one was allowed in except Mao's wife and her personal guests.

Bling had been explaining what a turn-on it had been, after years of jogging past the prohibited paradise, to one day, out of the blue, have the doors swung wide and be allowed to jog inside -- when Mr. Mude interrupted with that question about running.

"Damn straight I'm a runner," Bling answered. "One of your hometown heroes. Three years varsity, Beijing U. Come to a meet sometime, Mude; be my guest."

"A runner of distance?"

"I've done fives and tens. I hold the school record in the 1,500."

"Then you must be entered in tomorrow's heroic event?"

"Sorry. Tomorrow's heroes will have to run without Bee Wing Lou's company."

"Surely you must have applied? A running enthusiast residing in Beijing as you do?"

"It's an invitational, Mr. Mude… remember?"

"Ah, true," Mude recalled. "I had forgotten. Too bad for you, Mr. Wu."

Bling pulled down his blue shades to study Mude's face; it was impossible to tell if the mind behind that guarded smile were conniving, condescending, or what.

"Talk them into a 1,500 around the Tien An Men – like the Fifth Avenue mile in New York – then you'll see me out there busting my little yellow balls."

"That would be very enjoyable."

To get Bling off the hook, the editor asked if it might be possible to take a drive out to the Beijing campus to look over the sports scene, maybe catch a track practice. This time it was Bling who was reluctant and Mude who was suddenly permissive. True, he admitted, he did have preparations to make for the banquet, but saw no reason why they could not drop him off and continue on with Mr. Wu to his track practice. Everyone was left stunned by the sudden turnabout, and a trifle uneasy. When they dropped Mude off at the stark brick building he had directed the driver to, Bling became downright unnerved.

"That was the Bureau of Immigration Records!"

"Wonder whose name he's looking up?" the photographer wondered.

"I couldn't say for certain, but I'll bet you all a buck," Bling said unhappily, "it turns out to be Mud."

Nobody would cover the bet. The bus ride the rest of the way to the campus was somber and quiet.

In spite of the bright bustle of students, the campus was as grim as the pot-lid sky sitting heavy over it. One expects lawns on a campus, but most of the grounds were the same packed dirt that surrounded the rest of the city's dwellings, only not as well swept. The rows of gray-green gum trees made the walks and ways dim, like light undersea. The sullen looks of the workers did not help. Bling told them that there had been a lot of strife between students and laborers, who also lived on the sprawling campus. Bicycle tires slashed. Rapes. Gang fights between workers who considered the students arrogant and lazy and students who saw the workers as the same, only less educated. Without police protection the students would have been in sorry straits. "Out of a live-in population of about forty thousand, less than eight thousand are students."

"Sounds like the clods have the scholars unfairly outnumbered."

"In China," Bling moped, "t'was ever thus."

There was no track practice because of tomorrow's race, but three Chinese runners and the Australian girl were prowling the bleak cement gymnasium looking for someone with a key so they could get into the track room. Bling told them how to jimmy the lock and said he thought he'd skip the workout. The editor asked if they might take a look anyway, get some pictures. Reluctantly Bling led them down a dim concrete stairwell to a cracked wooden door in the cellar. The girl was gouging at the keyhole with a chopstick. Bling took over and finally dragged the door open and turned on a light. The room was a windowless cement box with a cot and a tiny desk. An iron rod stuck in the door frame was draped with a dozen tattered sweatsuits.